Fighting...So hard

It is so hard to fight to keep mental health...every day. And I lose that fight a lot. too much...I don't really get why I have to fight, but I do. It is the hardest thing for me to do the simplest healthy things. Sleep well, eat well, do the things i need to do. I can't do it...not regularly. But i have to. I can't function if I don't. I've got a role to play in people's lives, in God's story, and to do that as best I can, I have to keep fighting...it's just really exhausting. I don't have a ton of emotional support either...God's got me. I cannot forget that. It's my last straw of sanity

King Beetle on the Coconut Estate

As the moon rose and the hour grew late,
The day-help on the coconut estate
Raked up the dried leaves that fell dead from the trees
Which they burned in a pile by the lake.

The beetle king summoned his men
And from the top of the rhododendron stem
"Calling all volunteers who can carry back here,
The great mystery's been lit once again."

One beetle emerged from the crowd
In a fashionable abdomen shroud.
Said, "I'm a professor, see, that's no mystery to me,
I'll be back soon successful and proud."
But when the beetle professor returned,
He crawled on all six as his wings had been burned
And described to the finest detail all he'd learned
There was neither a light, nor a heat in his words

The deeply dissatisfied king
Climbed the same stem to announce the same thing
But in his second appeal sought to sweeten the deal
With a silver padparadscha ring.

The lieutenant stepped out from the line
As he lassoed his thorax with twine
Thinking, "i'm stronger and braver and I'll earn the king's favor.
One day all he has will be mine."

But for all the lieutenant's conceit,
He too returned singed and admitting defeat.
"I had no choice, please believe, but retreat
It was bright as the sun, but with ten times the heat
And it cracked like the thunder and bloodshot my eyes
Though smothered with sticks, it advanced undeterred
Carelessly cast an ash cloud to the sky, my lord,
Like a flock of dark vanishing birds."

The beetle king slammed down his fist
"your flowery descriptions no better than his!
We sent for the great light and you bring us this!
We didn't ask what it seems like, we asked what it is!"

His majesty's hour at last is drawn nigh
The elegant queen took her leave from his side
Without understanding, but without asking why
Gathered their kids to come bid their goodbyes
And the father explained, "you've been somewhat deceived,
We've all called me your dad, but your true dad's not me
I laid next to your mom and your forms were conceived
Your Father's the light within all that you see.
He fills up the ponds as he empties the clouds
Holds without hands, and he speaks without sounds.
He provides us with the cow's waste and coconuts to eat
Giving one that nice salt taste, and the other is sweet.
Sends the black carriage the day death shows its face
Thinning our numbers with kindness and grace
And just as a flower and its fragrance are one,
So must each of you and your Father become.

Now distribute my scepter, my crown, and my throne
And all we've known as wealth to the poor and alone
Without further hesitation, without looking back home,
The king flew headlong into the blazing unknown.

And as the smoke king curled higher and higher
The troops flying loops round the telephone wires
They said, "our beloved's not dead, but his highness instead,
Has been utterly changed into fire."

Why not be utterly changed into fire?

A great song...This is what I've been feeling a lot recently. "We sent for the great light and you bring us this" is the emotion I've been feeling...I want to be changed into fire. It feels kinda against my nature, but there's something in me that wants to fly headlong into the blazing unknown....

(for those who don't get the song, think of the fire as symbolic for a life totally devoted to Christ and following his way.)

It's Been a Hell of a Few Weeks

There's so much brokenness in the world you would not believe...So much. I can't put words to it. I'm not gonna try...but it's really hard to deal with seeing this much pain and hurt and brokenness all at once...really hard. It's hard to believe it can be fixed...that it can get better.

In the Clothes Closet

I realized again today that I've become rather closed. Not that I won't talk if people ask or whatever, but I've set myself up so that I don't really confide in people much. Every once in while when the strain's too much I find one of the people I trust and spill...but I don't have people involved in my life on a regular basis. I mean, I kinda do, but...I'm not really open with them. I've been closed for a few years now...I don't like it, but I'm not sure what to do about it. People know me, but only so much. Only as much as I want them to...and a bit more sometimes. Those who've known me for a while know me better than I might think I let them, but those have become increasingly few over the years...I'm not sure where to go with that, but I don't like it...

G. K. Chesterton and Romans

Romans 12:2 "do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind..."

Chesterton in Orthodoxy:

No one doubts that an ordinary man can get on with this world: but we demand not strength enough to get on with it, but strength enough to get it on. Can he hate it enough to change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth changing? Can he look up at its colossal good without once feeling acquiescence? Can he look up at its colossal evil without once feeling despair? Can he, in short, be at once not only a pessimist and an optimist, but a fanatical pessimist and a fanatical optimist? Is he enough of a pagan to die for the world, and enough of a Christian to die to it? In this combination, I maintain, it is the rational optimist who fails, the irrational optimist who succeeds. He is ready to smash the whole universe for the sake of itself.

It's an interesting, but almost self evident, thing that if one loves something properly, one loves it in a way that wants its best. This is what true realism is. Many pessimists say they're realists, but if they forget to love transformatively. I have missed this for a good while. I have seen the evil in the world and been appalled, but not till recently have I seen the beauty in it and loved it in a way that made me want to make things better.

This kind of passionate love is how God loves us. Chesterton talked earlier about how one loves something not for the features of something but for the sake of that something being what it was. I love my house not so much for any particular feature, but for the sake of it being my house. I love my siblings not so much because of any particular feature of their personality (though there are many good features), but because they're my siblings. In a similar way, God loves us not for any feature of ours, but because we're his. And because he loves us not for any particular feature, he's free to completely remake us without losing his love for us.

It is in this way that we should love the world around us. Not because of any particular feature of it, for there are many reasons to despise the world. Great evil, pain, and sorrow are all quite apparent. But we should love it because it's God's. It's his creation. So, in spite of how nasty the world is, It's still God's and he still loves it. Consequently, as his children, we should too. We should be made new by God's transforming love, and then let that love flow out to transform the world around us.

This also speaks to the issue of total depravity, but I'll leave that to another discussion...

Pride

Pride crops up in the stupidest places. I've been reading the Bible regularly. If I keep the pace I'm going at, I'll have read it through at least twice this year. That's a good thing, and excellent thing. God's been really really good that way. But it's so easy to feel better than others because of that. It's stupid. I KNOW I didn't do anything to get there. It just so happened that I had my bible and lunch in the car on a break at work at the same time, and I started reading. And I know it's been God who's kept me reading. But it's so easy to feel better than people who don't...

Today, I was talking with my counselor about what I find "flow" in. (basically, flow is when you're so wrapped up in something you forget yourself and the world around you). I find it in snowboarding and listening/playing music. He made the observation that it's more commonly found in more sterile environments. TV, video games, etc. And I KNOW that I used to be that way. I know that. But I felt proud that I was more connected to reality than that...It's absurd how insidious pride is. It dogs good things and then leaps at the opportunity to distort them...Would that I were actually humble...

Luke 14 and living in the Way.

Luke 14:25-33

²⁵ A large crowd was following Jesus. He turned around and said to them, ²⁶ “If you want to be my disciple, you must hate everyone else by comparison—your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple. ²⁷ And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple.
 ²⁸ “But don’t begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it? ²⁹ Otherwise, you might complete only the foundation before running out of money, and then everyone would laugh at you. ³⁰ They would say, ‘There’s the person who started that building and couldn’t afford to finish it!’
 ³¹ “Or what king would go to war against another king without first sitting down with his counselors to discuss whether his army of 10,000 could defeat the 20,000 soldiers marching against him? ³² And if he can’t, he will send a delegation to discuss terms of peace while the enemy is still far away. ³³ So you cannot become my disciple without giving up everything you own."

Don't begin until you count the cost. There is a cost to following Jesus. There's a cross to following Jesus. I didn't really pick up on that right away when I became a christian. I've seen a little bit what it's cost me over the years. TV, video games, and my emotional stability have all gone by the wayside in my following of Jesus. I don't really mourn those losses as I've seen the amazing things that have been a result of giving those things up, but I realized today that it's more than that. 

There's such a cost. To follow Jesus, to be his disciple, is a full time occupation. It costs not just my TV and video games, it costs everything. So much so that he warns us to count that cost before following him. To sit down and think about whether we're ready to commit to that. 

"You cannot become my  disciple without giving up everything you own." everything. If we commit to discipleship, it will change everything. Not just some things. Everything. How we talk, how we think. About people, life events, responsibility, family, community, the environment, food, war, life, death, exercise...everything.

I don't think I've given up everything. I think I've been a half-hearted disciple. I'm scared. I'm scared of counting the cost. I'm scared of what that cost might really be...I'm scared that cross reference isn't as figurative as I like to make it out to be.

If I am to be Jesus' disciple, his follower, then...

• I must hate everything in comparison. The people I love most in this world must be nothing compared to him and his way. My life must be nothing compared to him and his way.
• I must realize what the cost will be. And consider it carefully. He repeats that for emphasis. It's like he's saying "make doubly sure you know what you're getting into here." because...
•  I must give up everything. Everything. The things I hold dearest I must give up. He may give them back, may let me keep them. My friends, my music, my job, my comfort, my home, my desire for a spouse, my desires for anything...they must be his first, and mine second. 

It's scary as hell, but I'm convinced he's right, and that it's better...in my head at least. It needs to infuse how I live, still. Daily. Pray that it would.